


The Draft

by IGuessIWriteStuffNow



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Strong Language, Third Person POV, War, drafting, this isn't a happy one guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-17 21:05:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10602216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IGuessIWriteStuffNow/pseuds/IGuessIWriteStuffNow
Summary: The draft swept into their lives when they were hardly thirty years old.Or: The Things Jack Failed to Say to Davey





	

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently yesterday* was the 25th anniversary of Newsies??? Dang. Happy Birthday, Newsies!  
> I have decided to celebrate by writing angsty Javid fic.  
> So um  
> Enjoy that  
> *note- it was yesterday when I wrote this. I'm posting this like 3 minutes after midnight
> 
> Also Sarah and Jack are married in this fic for a few reasons a) sarah is a lot easier to work around than Katherine, jack-relationship wise (though I still adore Sarah with all of my heart). b) I like the way she fits in with this particular plot. c) she would both recognize and understand Jack's feelings for Davey

The draft swept into their lives when they were hardly thirty years old.

Unmarried, childless people got called first. Jack watched as his friends, so many of them fitting that criteria, got the letters. Some dodged. Some went. Jack didn't like it, the idea of his friends going to fight across the ocean, but most of the ones who got drafted- Spot, Race, Blink, Mush- he knew they could manage. Growing up on the streets had to be half like the war, anyway, he reasoned. Jack knew that whatever war threw at them, they could handle it.

He knew that the way he knew Davey couldn’t.

Jack didn't think he'd ever be able to forget the expression written across Dave’s features when he came to tell Jack and Sarah. Hands tight in fists, face scrunched up in the way he did when he was trying not to cry, as he made an attempt to speak. He finally managed to spit out the words, voice cracking as he did. Sarah lept to her feet and ran to him, enveloping him in her arms as she loudly cursed the country for sending people away- sending her brother away- against their will. Jack wanted to join her. He wanted to hug him and cry and yell because Davey, _his Davey_ , couldn’t be sent away. He couldn’t make it. He would- he would-

Sarah backed away from her brother, glancing over at Jack’s silent form. Letting her hand slip out of Davey’s, she made her way out of the room, and they were alone. Jack cautiously stepped closer, not yet trusting himself to speak. Blue eyes looked up at him through lashes stuck together with tears, an image so beautifully heartbreaking it made it hard for Jack to breathe. He wrapped his arms tight around the other boy. They stood there in a silence broken only by the heavy breathing of two people trying not to cry. “Dave…” Jack whispered. “Don’t go.”

“I have to.” Davey wrapped his fingers around the fabric that hung loose on Jack’s torso. “I can’t dodge the draft. They’d catch me.”

“You is too smart to get caught. I’ve seen kids who ain’t got half a’ your brains do it.”

He looked a Jack for a moment, as if he was honestly considering it. But then the fleeting hope drained from his eyes and he went back to burying his head in Jack’s shoulder. “I’m not dodging, Jack.” _A’ course not._ Davey, who was in his thirties and still couldn’t execute a convincing lie; Davey, the most upstanding citizen Jack had ever met; obviously he wouldn’t dodge. Too good.

But Dave, he was a pacifist. He was the one who had convinced the boys to stop soaking he scabs during the strike. He had written articles upon articles for the paper, listing every reason why they shouldn’t declare war. The lives of citizens weren’t worth it, he’d argued. Not that anyone listened.

Smart, pacifistic Dave was being shipped off to fight and kill. It wasn’t _fair_.

“Let me take your place, Dave.” Dave looked up at him, eyes wide. “I’ve been livin’ on the streets my whole life. I can take a war.”

Davey sighed and shook his head. “Jack. We aren’t kids and you can’t fight my battles. I’m not- I know I’m not ready for this.” He admitted and the tears built up in his eyes again. “But they called on me, so I’m going to do it.”

“I ain’t gonna let ya do it alone, Dave.” He laced his fingers through Davey’s and gently squeezed his hand. “You won’t let me take your place, then I’ll go with ya.”

“You can’t, Jack.” His voice was so empty, so defeated. That voice that had, so many times, brought Jack out of fits of anger or self-doubt. Jack never wanted to hear it sound so dismayed. “What about Sarah?”

“She’s a smart girl. She can handle herself.”

“You’re her _husband_ , Jack.” The words instantly triggered a memory inside Jack and, looking in Davey’s eyes, he knew they both remembered the moment.

 _Jack was over at Davey’s apartment, just to have dinner and to talk. Growing up had made such simple things much harder to find time for. But they had managed it. They were together, sat with almost no room between them, holding hands. And Dave said something, and Jack laughed, and their faces were so close, and Davey was looking at him the way he did when they were young, before the harsh reality of their society had forced apart what they had. So Jack had leaned in, just a bit, and so had Dave. But then he was putting a hand on Jack’s chest and gently pushing him away. “We can't… We can't do this. You’re her_ husband _, Jack,” Davey pleaded, looking near heartbroken even as he said it. And Jack had wanted to argue, to say that yeah, he was married to her, but she wasn’t who he was in love with. But Dave, like usual, was right. Jack had made a vow and he wouldn't break it._

And again, he couldn't. He conceded, head bowed. “Yeah, Davey. I am.” He sighed. “You’se gonna come back, right?”

“Of course, Jack.” He had no way to be sure of this and they both knew it. But empty promises were the one thing that could be relied on to fill the pits of fear eating away at their stomachs.

 

Their goodbyes weren't any more special, nor did they do anything to unwind the coils of worry. Jack grasped both of Davey’s hands in his own and maintained a silent eye contact. So much of their lives had involved each other and that was changing. What was there to say? 

Three words hung unspoken in the air and Jack ached to just say them. Because, god, what if this was his last chance? But Davey hadn’t said a word either. What if he didn't feel the same? Jack wasn't willing ruin what they had, not then. He couldn't let them part with Davey hating him. It would crush him.

_I love you, David Jacobs._

Instead, he choked out: “I'm gonna miss ya, Davey.” 

“And I'll miss you.” God, Jack wanted to kiss him. But he couldn’t. Not with Davey’s family so close and with Davey’s feelings still unknown. All he could do was take a step back and try to slow his breathing.

_I’ve loved ya since we was kids._

“Write me, yeah?”

Davey nodded. “As often as I can.”

_I think I always will._

“Bye, Davey.” He bit the inside of his cheek. He would not cry.

“Goodbye, Jack.” Jack nodded and let his hands slip out of Davey’s, each finger that fell from contact with his seeming to add another surge of pain to Jack’s chest. He didn’t once look back as he made his way home. It would surely break both of them if Dave were to see the tears in his eyes. 

 

Davey did write him. A lot. Letters upon letters of Dave’s beautiful writing were sent to his door and Jack savored every word. Especially those letters that weren't addressed to him _and_ Sarah- though there were plenty of those- the letters that were just for him, those were the ones he cherished. He kept those in a special drawer to reread almost nightly, loving every word he read. Each letter ended the same: _Please write back._ And Jack knew he lacked Dave’s perfect spelling and grammar, but hell if that would stop him from responding to every letter he received. 

Jack found that Dave was a better liar in writing, though not by much. There were a lot of things he couldn’t tell Jack about- for privacy matters- but what he did convey regarding the war always seemed about to good to be true. His handwriting seemed sloppier than it had been before he left, as if we had been nervous while writing. But the words themselves were always assuring that the conditions were fine, the people were fine, he was _fine_. Jack wished he could believe him.

His responses were never as elegant as Davey’s, but he made sure to tell stories. He recounted funny things Les said, the antics of any of the former newsboys who were still around New York, how Katherine’s career was going. And yeah, maybe he improved the truth a bit, but what did it matter? Davey was surely going through enough hell without having to hear about the bad things happening back home. He didn’t need to hear that Les couldn’t find work and went hungry most nights. He didn’t need to be informed when Jack got the news that another one of the boys he had sold papes beside had been shot or died of disease. He needed some good news. And, over the years, Davey had given Jack so much in the way of joy. He was more than ready to return the favor in the little way he could.

Jack thought about ending each letter he wrote with those three words that always troubled him. He never did. There were too many risks and too many possible consequences. And, in all honesty, he was scared. Scared of the unknown that surrounded Dave’s feelings and the far too obvious existence of his own. Fear was a terrible motivator and it drove him to leave the words as unwritten as they were unspoken.

It was better that way.

 

It was seven months after Davey left for war when the letter came.

It went to Dave’s parents first, as he didn’t have a wife or children to receive it. It was unknown to Jack how long they had held onto it before Dave’s father, shaking in an attempt not to cry, showed up at Sarah’s doorstep to pass it off to her. Jack had been in his room at the time, unaware that anything was amiss, until Sarah barged inside, the tears already streaming down her face.

Jack immediately noticed the stamp on the letter. So easily recognizable was its symbol. And he knew there was only one type of letter that place could send that was able to so quickly reduce someone to tears. “Sarah.” He stood. “Sarah, tell me that ain’t what I think it is.” His hands were clasped together, practically begging for her to tell him that his thinking was wrong.

She shook her head, taking in short inhales in close succession to replenish the air lost in her sobs. “It’s- it’s Davey. He’s- It says he’s- it says he’s dea- dea-” She couldn’t get the last word out. She didn’t need to. Jack stomach was churning as his fists dug into the soft flesh of his palm, not stopping when they drew blood. Sarah tried again. “Davey is dead.”

Jack ran to the bathroom and vomited.

Once his stomach was empty, he went back. He couldn’t keep his hands from shaking, and each time he clenched and unclenched his fists it only got worse. It hurt to think, just like it hurt to move, and to breathe, and to do anything in this goddamn world that had found it right to terminate the existence of David Jacobs. He forced himself to walk, going as far as he could before collapsing in Sarah’s lap, head buried in her shoulder. And there, breathing in the soft smell of her fabric and telling himself that this all had to be a dream, he finally let himself cry. He cried, sobbed, and yelled incoherent words to no one and for no purpose. All the while Sarah held him, still trying to comfort him, though she was crying as well. The strokes of her hand over his back and the soft sounds she hummed into his hair reminded him that he wasn’t alone- he still had Sarah.

But it wasn’t enough.

“It ain’t fair, Sarah. It ain’t fucking fair!” The sentences were released in a jumbled yell, but it was all Jack could form. He was disgusted by the sound of the words- wet with tears and saliva. The grief made a small amount of room for the guilt of ruining Sarah’s dress sleeve. “He is- was- so, so fucking smart and so _good_ and he shouldn’t’ve even _gone_ ta’ that goddamn war in the first place.” Sarah hummed in assent, cradling him like the child he was. All he could think to do was yell and protest, because all he ever had was his voice. Sure- it could lower paper costs and get a bunch of wild kids to listen to him. But it couldn’t do shit for the person who mattered most. “I told ‘im not to go. I- I fucking _knew_ this would happen. And the idiot, he don’t listen. He went- he went and got himself killed.” He sobbed out the last word, feeling the familiar nausea bubbling in his stomach. He knew there was nothing left to come up, but he was still scared to throw up again. “I ain’t- I can’t live in a world where he ain’t here, Sarah. I can’t. I- I love him. I fucking love him.” He didn’t even care that Sarah heard. Sarah, his wife, who he’d made vows to love, who could reasonably get him arrested for what he’d said. But he didn’t care. Davey was gone and he didn’t care about anything.

Sarah sighed into his hair, voice as heavy as his. “I know, Jack. I know.” She held him tighter as he sobbed. He kept murmuring it, over and over, _I love him_ , as if it could make up for all the times he was too cowardly to say it to his face. And it was too late. He was dead and he probably never knew.

 

Jack went out drinking the day before the funeral service. He had barely managed to stagger through the streets on New York, his head buzzing with intoxication. He made it as far as Jacobs’ doorway before collapsing. The sound of his drunk body hitting the floor was just audible enough for the one person in the home still awake to hear. Sarah opened the door and carried him inside, into the room where they had been staying so they could be amongst family. Jack was glad the others were asleep. He had been purposefully avoiding talking to them; he couldn’t witness the grief written over the faces of Dave’s parents, or worse, have to see _Les_. Jack couldn’t imagine their grief and he didn’t want to. It would only make it all more real. Instead, he laid down next to Sarah and when she asked him if he was going to go to the service the next day, he assured her, of course he would. She smiled- a small, broken one at that- and Jack was glad to let her have that small comfort. She slowly drifted off to sleep, her husband beside her, full of his promises of what tomorrow would bring. But, like so many of Jack’s words, the promises were empty.

And by the time she awoke, he was long gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Does Jack run away to Santa Fe? Another part of New York? Does he himself join the war? Or did he do something else? That's up for you to decide my friends
> 
> But yeah give me validation or criticism- either way, comments make me happy. And I hope you are all having the best of days!


End file.
